Physics-Sim
Python 3D Simulation of atomic level Electron and Proton interactions in a Newtonian framework.
The Python code which can be found as a single file in /src is a mess because I created it as just a quick and dirty playground for exploring and learning. I first started this back in 2016 and have worked on it from time to time over the years. I'm currently (2021) working to clean it up and turn it into something others can look at and play with and use for their own experiments. I also hope to find the time to write up and document the things I have learned.
Example Output
Overview and Background
This project started around 2016 as a quick and dirty exploration of some ideas of a grand unified theory of Physics. The code has served as a learning and experimentation tool to widen my understanding of what is possible by taking a very different view of physics. This code applies Newtonian Physics concepts to the interaction of Protons and Electrons while ignoring the known effects of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.
The project and code makes a few very non-conventional assumptions.
- Electrons and Protons can be treated as bodiless point sources of charge that can not collide with each other.
- They have a fixed mass and move in response to forces per classical Newtonian physics in a classical 3D space, with no Relativity time or space dilation effects.
- That force interactions happen with NO speed of light time delays.
- That there are no low-level quantum energy effects in the system.
The intent here is not to create a bad simulation of particle interactions, but rather to search for a simpler low level explanation for all physical effects. This project is a search for a grand unifying answers in Physics.
Changing What we Believe to be Primary
The key that motivates this project is that the known effects of relativity and quantum mechanics might all be emergent behaviors of a simpler underlying system that so far has eluded us.
Currently, relativistic effects and quantum mechanic effects are treated as primary in the field of physics. That is, they are treated as elementary truths about the universe. I believe there are strong clues to suggest this is not so. That they could be emergent effects, and not fundamental effects. I believe there might be some extremely simple fundamental effects, currently unknown to us, that will explain all the rest.
Is Speed of Light Fundamental?
For example, particle charge interactions working without time delays, violates the known truths about the speed of light which is so deeply fundamental to our current understanding of physics. However, when we simulate a field of electron interactions with forces that have no time delays, we find that kinetic energy moves THOUGH the field, with a very real time delay. When we add velocity and kinetic energy to one electron, it pushes the others near it, which pushes the others near that, and the kinetic energy which we injected into the simulation at one point, spreads though the field with a very real time delay, despite the fact that the force interactions happen with no delay. So it's totally consistent that waves of kinetic energy can move at a limited speed even while force interactions happen with no delays. This fact opens the door to the idea that fundamental force interactions might work without the speed of light time delays.
Likewise, the well known, "spooky action at a distance" issue of quantum mechanics tells us that the universe has an underlying power to effect action across great distance beyond the speed of light, even if we can't use that as a communication channel. This is clear evidence of interactions happening faster than the speed of light in the universe, but so far, we have made no progress on explaining how that happens. The approach of this project is to assume force interactions happen without time delay, and are the reason quantum wave collapse can happen faster than the speed of light, while kinetic energy transfer speed, being limited to the speed of light, is an emergent effect of the lower level primitive force interactions. At least this is the idea being explored in this project.
Is Time and Space Dilation Fundamental or Emergent?
The physics community has accepted that Relativity is real, and it has for the most part become seen as a fundamental truth of the universe. This is because real data confirms it's a truth no matter how odd it may seem.
However, are all the Relativity effects fundamental? Or are they emergent? As per the point above, it's possible for force interactions to happen without any speed limits, even though kinetic energy transfers are speed limited. So this opens to door to the idea that fundamental force interactions don't play by the rules of relativity, and that only kinetic energy transfers follow the rules of relativity.
All of Einstein's theories about Relativity fall out from the idea that NOTHING acts faster than the speed of light. If there is a deeper fundamental truth that is not limited by the speed of light, then the fundamental underlying forces of the universe might escape all these limits as well. All the strangeness of relativity might be complex emergent effects instead of lower level fundamental truths.
This project explores the idea this could be possible. That all the complexity of time and space dilation is a higher level emergent property, and not true of underlying fundamental force and motion interactions of atomic particles.
Are Quantum effects Fundamental or Emergent?
When we started to explore the nature of atoms over 100 years ago, it was quickly uncovered that atoms have very interesting and hard to explain quantization effects.
Atoms like to lock themselves into states of constant energy, and only shed, and absorb energy, in well-defined quantized units of kinetic energy transfers. We have documented these effects in great detail with quantum mechanics, but we have not really explained WHY this happens. We have not found a lower level fundamental reason atoms work this way. We have instead, just documented with math, HOW they work, and because no one (as far as know with my limited knowledge of the very complex field of physics), as explained WHY they work that way. We have not found a lower level explanation that explains why atoms are quantized.
We have taken this behavior of atoms, and projected it onto particle interactions to create views of reality that we describe as wave particle duality. We have again, taken the quantized view of atoms absorbing and releasing energy, as a fundamental truth of how the lowest levels of interaction "work". That light is not a wave, but instead actually particles we call photons that carry energy from atom to atom.
Though this view works to give us correct mathematical answers that explain important observed effects, it's quite possible that it is a poor fundamental answer to how atoms, or particles interact. It is logically possible, that fundamental particle interactions are simpler, and that the tendency of atoms to be held in quantized energy levels, is just emergent.
Since we exist in a world built of atoms, it creates a reality for us that looks fundamental quantized at the atomic level and below.
The fundamental interaction of particles however, might not be quantized at all.
One way to see how this might be possible, is to assume that the fundamental particle interactions could maybe cause atoms to tend to synchronize their orbital cycles. So instead of hydrogen atoms all running at different orbital radius and different orbital speeds, with the right fundamental interactions, they might all tend to synchronize their orbital periods with each other. This is even easier to accept once we have justified the possibility that force interactions happen across the entire universe with no time delays.
Such atomic orbital synchronization could mean the entire universe is infused with a background high frequency Force vibration that acts as a master clock. This background force vibrations then effects the generic shapes and periods of all the more complex atomic structures creating, potentially, this quantization we see that could explain why all these atoms, are so highly quantized in their ability to transfer kinetic energy, but yet be governed by more fundamental forces that have such quantization effects.
So again, we open the door to the possibility that quantum mechanics, like Relativity, might be an emergent effect and not a fundamental effect.
Curt Welch - curt@kcwc.com